There's many cogs in the wheel of success for musicians

When an artist has a song that reaches No. 1 on the charts, it's understandable that they get to bask in that success. After all, it's their voice and their music that has found a vast audience and propelled the song to the top of the charts.

Jeff DeDekker, Regina Leader-Post

Updated: October 1, 2016

Producer Jason Plumb of Studio One Recording, is a veteran of the music business.BRYAN SCHLOSSER / Regina Leader-Post

When an artist has a song that reaches No. 1 on the charts, it’s understandable they get to bask in that success. After all, it’s their voice and their music that has found a vast audience and propelled the song to the top of the charts.

But is it oversimplified to give all the credit to the artist and the artist alone?

Of course, that’s a natural reaction given the artist has the high profile in public — it’s the identity that’s forever affixed to the hit song.

Yet while the artist may have totally earned the adulation, no one achieves the success of a hit single all by themselves. That reality probably doesn’t cross the mind of fans as they’re listening to their favourite songs — their focus understandably is on the finished project — but for every artist that reaches No. 1, there are many other people behind the scenes that had a role in that success.

The most important cogs in the wheel of success, at least when it comes to the music business, are songwriting, producing and promotion. Here’s a closer look at each of three components and how they relate to the success of a song:

Songwriting

If you ask singer/songwriter Deric Ruttan if songwriters are taken for granted, his answer is straight and simple.

“That’s pretty much right on the money,” Ruttan said from his home in Nashville. “My wife was in that category actually. She moved to Nashville to be a songwriter when she realized there were people who wrote songs for most of the artists, that professional songwriter was an actual specific legitimate job. When she was growing up, she had no idea. She assumed, like most people do, that the artists you hear on the radio also wrote the songs.

“In some cases, that’s true but not always.”

The 44-year-old Ruttan, who grew up in Bracebridge, Ont., moved to Nashville in the late 1990s to pursue his dream of country music stardom. While he has released five albums in the past 15 years and fashioned a dedicated fan base in Canada, it’s his songwriting that has caught the attention of artists and record labels on Music Row.

Ruttan’s songs have been recorded by the likes of Tim McGraw, Darius Rucker, Terri Clark, Justin Moore, Jason Aldean and Paul Brandt with his biggest successes coming with superstars Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and Blake Shelton.

Bentley has recorded five songs that he co-wrote with Ruttan (That Don’t Make It Easy To Leaving Me; I’m Gonna Get There Someday; Lot Of Leavin’ Left To Do; What Was I Thinkin’; and, Distance Shore) while Church has cut three tracks from Ruttan (Ain’t Killed Me Yet; Hell On The Heart; and, Guys Like Me). Shelton, who has perhaps the highest profile in country music given his role as a judge on the NBC reality show The Voice, has two Ruttan songs in his catalogue (Came Here To Forget and Mine Would Be You).

Out of the Bentley/Church/Shelton tunes, five of the 10 songs broke into the Top 10 with three — Came Here To Forget; Mine Would Be You; and, What Was I Thinkin’ — reaching No. 1. Mine Would Be You was also nominated for a Grammy.

With that track record of success, it only stands to reason that other artists are knocking down Ruttan’s door to hear what he’s written lately.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” he said with a laugh. “There is a little bit of that going on but not as much as you’d think. The reason for that is there are so many writers in Nashville doing what I do and so many of them had a lot more success than I’ve had and I’m not trying to be falsely modest or anything. In order to get someone to ask, ‘Hey man, what have you got for me?’, usually you have to be like Ashley Gorley, who has had 23 No. 1’s, or Rodney Clawson, who’s had 22 No. 1’s, or Craig Wiseman, my co-writer on my last single for Blake, who has had something like 30 No. 1’s.

“It’s so competitive that it’s really about the best song winning for any given project. It’s about how that song hits the ears of an artist on that particular day. Two months later they may get pitched the same song and say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember this song. I love this song. I’m going to cut it.’ There’s so many factors involved. When you’re in my position and you’ve had some hits and some sizable successes, it does open some doors. Co-writing opportunities come more frequently. My publisher’s job is more difficult because he’s fielding more calls for me, people who want to collaborate.

“It’s just super, super competitive to get on some of these records.”

Jason Plumb, a singer/songwriter who also owns Regina’s Studio One Recording, agrees with Ruttan that the quality of the material is vital to the success of a song. There’s a line about singers with fantastic voices that claims, ‘I would listen to them sing a phone book.’ And while a world-class voice is a gift, singing the listings of a phone book would never, ever result in a hit single.

“A good song trumps everything,” said Plumb, who has had hits with his indie rock bands The Waltons and The Willing. “A good song is a good song and then it’s just a matter of catching that performance.”

Production

The average music fan often takes the production process, like the songwriting, for granted. After all, how hard can it be? An artist goes into the recording studio, stands in front of a microphone and then the producer records the song.

“In the best case scenario, that’s what happens but in my experience that’s pretty rare,” explained Plumb. “The closest I’ve come to a hands-off recording that I’ve been involved with was with (Saskatchewan country artist) Colter Wall. I’m usually pretty involved, from arrangements to instrumentation to melody. Some people don’t like it, some people love it but I’m pretty involved in it for the song. With me and Kara (Golemba, an Indian Head folk artist), we sat in my living room and worked out her songs for three days without even going into the studio. Colter was playing live so it was guitar and vocal — that was it.

“Colter’s turned out to be the exception to a lot of rules. There was some light arrangement work I did with him but it was really a couple of chord substitutions. Let me tell you, that kid can write songs, he’s really something special. Because of the nature of the recording, there wasn’t a lot of overdubbing to do. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum is (Saskatchewan alt-country singer) Blake (Berglund)’s record. It was really piece by piece, what could happen here, what’s going to happen there, because it’s a concept record. It’s 10 songs in one piece. And then in the middle was (Regina bluegrass band) Dead South, who are one of the best live bands going. They took to my suggestions easily, arrangement-wise and tempo-wise.

“So that’s the extremes. And Kara, she was in between because she’s such a great singer. She’s a one-take singer and that really helps. People really connect with that — it’s the vocal, the feel of it all. If the singing is there, there’s not a lot of work to do around that. It’s just a matter of staying out of the way, instrument it, getting the instrumentation to support the song.”

Plumb, who has been producing for the past 15 years and is in high demand, recognizes his strengths as a producer and those serve as his foundation in the studio.

Having said that, Plumb understands that it’s not his job as a producer to re-invent the artist.

“I’m learning that, the more records that I do, is to try and let the artist be more true to themselves,” said Plumb. “It’s taken quite awhile. I’ve done 20 records or so now and it’s been in these last three or four where I’ve got it. I know what my strengths are as a producer and that’s arranging and vocals. And I’m wearing three hats when I’m in the studio — I’m engineering the record as well and I’m probably going to end up mixing it as well.”

With other artists recording his songs, Ruttan understands the importance of collaborating with the artist rather than trying to attach a song to a specific artist. Like Plumb working in the studio, when Ruttan is writing his major focus is the quality of the work.

“Usually we’re trying to write the best song possible that day,” said Ruttan. “My motto has always been ‘Serve the song.’ Once you get into a room with a co-writer, or if you’re writing on your own, once you come up with a title or an idea, the nucleus of what the song should be about, your job is to serve the song. Is this song better served as ballad or up tempo, etc. You continue to do that through the life of writing that song until you see it through to fruition.”

Promotion

Once the recording process is complete, the next step is releasing the music to the world. Again, the general thought is, “How hard can that be?” For the uninitiated, the process should be simple — send out press releases to radio, newspaper and television groups, mail copies of the CD to said groups, do interviews and maybe spread the word through social media outlets.

However, blanketing or saturating a market really isn’t a successful business plan.

“The most important thing in taking something to market, whether the focus is major commercial radio or perhaps campus radio, is to know what your market is and who you are best aligned with,” explained Michael Dawson, executive director of SaskMusic and a member of Regina’s Library Voices. “There’s got to be a strategy to when it arrives on someone’s desk and the momentum behind it.

“You’ve got to make sure you strategize from Step A to B to C and all the way through and that increases the chances of success. There are artists that completely operate in spite of what I’m saying, and I’m aware of that, but in general, if you believe in the music you’re writing or performing or recording, it deserves the most justice it can get to reach the biggest possible audience.”

The recording industry has undergone significant changes in the past 25 years — gone are the days of recording on 24-track, two-inch tape, replaced by high-tech computerized equipment.

These changes have made it easier for artists to record — Plumb said it’s possible to record using a laptop and some online tools — yet Dawson suggests the digital world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

“The digital era has made it easier to finds fans throughout the world, from Belarus to Brazil, but the flip side is it’s easier to get lost in the shuffle as a young artist and to feel a little defeated by it,” said Dawson. “For us (at SaskMusic), it’s ‘Let’s stack all these odds and make sure that everything you do as an artist is a stepping stone moving forward’ . . . I don’t ever see myself here telling someone what they absolutely must do but rather, help them lay out a plan to reach their objective, whatever that is.

“It could be the courage to get out and play your first show or really chasing major market radio, there’s strategies to import for all of these.”

So the next time that you’re grooving to a tune from one of your favourite artists, don’t forget that it was a team effort to get that little piece of heaven to you.

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